


And if you're ever tired of being known

by TheZebraPainter



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Bucky Barnes - Freeform, Sorry for too many italics, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Steve is an only child, bucky isn't, steve rogers - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:27:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28965342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheZebraPainter/pseuds/TheZebraPainter
Summary: "Bucky knows the routine, but actually watching it is a totally different thing. The music starts, the girls sing, and-Oh. My. God."Bucky witnesses Steve Captain America'ing for the first time and can't stop laughing.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	And if you're ever tired of being known

Bucky knows the routine, but actually watching it is a totally different thing. The music starts, the girls sing, and-

Oh. My. God.

Bucky has to bite the inside of his cheek to stop laughing.

_Jesus Christ._

Steve’s bounding towards the audience, reeling off his lines with ease. The man to Bucky’s right’s cheering with all his might, the woman on his left looks as though she might _swoon._

Bucky sinks down in his seat, chin to his chest, lips desperately pressed together.

Because _oh my god._

The whole thing was so totally detached from reality, so detached from who Steve actually _was_. It was hilarious.

Bucky could live the rest of his life winding Steve up for this. In fact, there’s no way in hell he’s going to pass up the opportunity. Because Steve Rogers, the boy who beat everyone up just for looking at him funny, the boy who was so fierce and proud, the boy who had gone through the craziest fucking experiment to join the army- He’d grown up to be a salesman, for god’s sake. One that came with a costume. And dancing girls. And _trumpets._

Bucky is very, very lucky that at this point the woman next to him has jumped up out of her seat and is screaming fit to burst, because he can’t keep the laughter inside any more.

+++

After the performance, Bucky hangs about backstage, smirking at Steve’s obvious discomfort at handling a baby for a photo. Steve glances up over at him briefly as he hands the baby back, and flushes. The next person in line wrings his hand, the lady after that wants her photo taken kissing his cheek. 

“Excuse me sir? Would you like your photo taken with Captain America?”. 

Across the hall Steve has clearly heard the question, but as he’s holding another baby, there’s nothing he can do except try to make his grimace look like a smile.

“Do you know,” Bucky says, “I’d _love_ my photo taken with Captain America.” 

If looks could kill Bucky would not only be dead in this life, but in the next one as well. It doesn’t matter, because the only thing Bucky knows is someone got Steve’s death glare in their long-awaited photo, and this whole thing is _insane_. Still chuckling, Bucky lets himself be led to the end of the line.

+++

He’s laughing a lot less after the forty-five minutes it takes to get through everyone in the line, but then it’s his turn and Steve’s still glowering at him.

“Can I give you a kiss on the cheek too, Captain America?” Bucky asks, and gets his hand crushed in Steve’s vice-like grip in response. The resultant photo is Steve not even bothering to smile, and Bucky's mouth caught halfway between a wince and a swear word. _Still_ , Bucky thinks, gingering flexing his fingers, _worth it to wind Steve up a bit._

“What a photo,” he says, as Steve finally comes out from the dressing room. “I’m going to put it on my wall.”

“You are _never_ coming to one of these again,” Steve says through gritted teeth.

“No? I thought I’d come to every one. I could build up a photo collection.”

“ _Bucky_ ,” Steve snaps, exasperated.

“What?” Bucky tries to play innocent, but he can’t help himself from laughing.

Steve just shakes his head, his jaw set. One of the advantages of his new body is his significantly longer legs, and with them, a quicker pace. He stalks ahead of Bucky, who has to run a little to catch him up. “Steve, Steve, come on,” Bucky says, still cackling. “You know if this was the other way around you’d be taking the piss-”

“God, just _leave off_ , Bucky!”

And Steve does sound so legitimately pissed off that Bucky holds his hands up in surrender and says, “Okay, okay! I’m sorry. Let’s just get a drink, yeah?”

He doesn’t get an answer – Steve’s jaw is so set it’s almost wired shut – but they both head in the direction of the nearest bar.

+++

Steve’s jaw may as well be wired shut for all the conversation Bucky gets from him over the course of their next one and a half drinks. If he was going to push it and annoy Steve some more, he would smugly suggest it was Steve’s only child-ness that led him to take being teased so badly, but even Bucky can see that it would be a push too far. Instead he sits back and downs the rest of his drink. Then waits. Fidgets some. Tips his head to examine the ceiling, and then the others in the bar. Steve is still sat there with a face on when he finishes, so Bucky starts tapping the table in an idle pattern. He’s thinking about adding his feet to the rhythm, just to change it up a bit, when Steve suddenly slams his glass onto the table and stomps out. It jolts Bucky to his feet, and he follows into the cool evening air. Steve’s expecting him, has always known Bucky would follow him everywhere, and he’s already spinning around to face him as Bucky comes out the door.

“You have no idea what it’s like, Bucky!” He shouts, and some part of Bucky’s brain goes _oh, this again_.

He temporarily reconsiders his decision not to bring up the only child thing, and then goes with, “Oh, this again.”

“ _Again?_ ” Steve snarls. “I am sorry to bore you. I never fucking asked you to stick around, did I?”

_No, you damn well didn’t,_ Bucky thinks, pissed off himself. Steve always does this, and yeah, it is boring. They’ve been friends for so long, how can Steve say with a straight face “you have no idea what it’s like?” He knows exactly what it must be like for Steve, to be stuck as a walking advertisement when all he’s ever wanted to do is fight.

“Look, I get it sucks. You want to fight and even now you can fight, they still won’t let you. Do you think I don’t _know_ you, Steve?”

“Not _that_. It’s not that, Bucky.”

Bucky’s brow furrows. “Then what?”

“All these people!” Steve says, throwing his arms out. “All these people thinking I’m Captain America, having to be Captain America to all these people! Having to _mean_ something to all these people!”

“Huh,” Bucky says inelegantly.

Steve sighs. His chest is heaving. The next words come out small. “I’ve only had to mean something to my ma and you, before.”

_Oh._

_Well, there’s the only child thing again,_ Bucky thinks. At least Bucky’s always had Becca to mean something to. He’s never thought he's had to carry the hopes of others on his own, like Steve has.

Steve runs a hand through his hair, turns his face away. Bucky can’t have that, can’t let Steve be so sad and honest. He chucks an arm around Steve’s shoulders and shakes him a bit. “What do you mean, only your ma and me? We’re not only anything. If you don’t want the ghost of your ma to swoop down on our heads, you’d best take back that only.” That manages to get a smile out of Steve, but not a big one, so he carries on.

“You know, it’s not your job to win the war. Even with all your new shit, you couldn’t do it by yourself. Don’t make a difference that you’re Captain America.”

“But at least I’d be doing something, Buck! Something instead of this godforsaken prancing about on stage that does nothing except get people to part with their money.” 

Bucky shrugs. “You’re keeping morale up. That’s important.”

“ _Morale,_ ” Steve scoffs.

“Hey, pal, you definitely boosted my morale today. I’ve not laughed so much in months.”

“Fuck you Bucky,” Steve says, but now he’s smiling properly.

“Am I really banned? ‘Cause I need that morale-booster I tell ya.”

Steve snorts and throws Bucky’s arm off his shoulder. “I’m going to tell security not to let you within a hundred feet,” he says.

Bucky smirks. “Then I’ll come next time in my uniform. Think a security team is going to ban a poor soldier, someone who’s fighting for the country, from seeing the guy who’s supposed to motivate us all?”

“They’d _better_ ,” Steve flashes back.

“But what about my photo collection?” This time, Bucky can manage innocent, and he deserves the shove he gets in response. He pulls the photo out of his breast pocket and looks at it again. Steve’s barely-contained annoyance through the mask, coupled with the pain starting to show on his own face, and fucking hell. Somehow it’s gotten even more hysterical, and even Steve starts laughing when he sees it.

“Jesus Christ,” he says, when he catches his breath.

“That’s exactly what I thought, pal.”

+++

At the next Captain America event, Bucky does wear his uniform, just in case Steve has tried to ban him. He gets in, but opts to stand at the back, so he can hide his laughter better. At the photos afterwards, Bucky waits patiently in line, or at least, he tries to. The woman in front of him notices the uniform and urges him forward, and suddenly, everyone is doing the same, passing on their thanks for his service forward like a game of telephone, until he’s at the front.

When Steve realises it's him, his fixed smile breaks into a real one.

“Ah, and now a soldier come to have his photo with Captain America!” the photographer enthuses.

“I’ve come to boost my morale,” Bucky says and Steve laughs.

“He’s actually my best friend,” Steve tells the photographer, and slings his arm over Bucky’s shoulders. Bucky reciprocates, and their next photo is one of them smiling widely at the camera.

When Bucky’s deployed two weeks later, both photos sit in his breast pocket, and when he tires of the whole damn war, he takes them out, and smiles to himself. Every time he looks at them, he vows to fight for Steve, with all the ferociousness Steve would fight with. Until Steve is allowed to come and fight for himself – and Bucky reckons he will be, soon, because no-one can be more stubborn than Steve if he wants something (that only-child thing again). But until Steve is allowed to come, Bucky will fight on his behalf.

And if Bucky wants to use him as a morale booster in the meantime? Steve’s _Captain America,_ for God’s sake. Who else would he use?

**Author's Note:**

> Trying something new. I hope you liked it! Title is from Taylor Swift's Dorothea, and it was originally meant to be "and if you're ever tired of being known for who you know". I was going to focus this on Steve being Captain America and Bucky being annoyed that people acted like they knew him when they didn't, but what came out was something different, so the title had to be shortened. I am planning a kinda part 2 to this ("you know, you always know me"), so if you like this, please stick around for it! Thanks for reading.


End file.
